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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899809">show me what you eat</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder'>attheborder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cannibalism, Ficlet, Gen, Horror, Post-Canon Fix-It, came back wrong, kind of not really, tozer/hickey/gibson and fitzier if you squint but not enough to tag</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:27:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899809</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It hasn’t been but a week since Hickey’s last delivery; yet the hunger shows clear in the sallowness of the Captain’s skin, the dullness of his eyes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fingerbang #1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>show me what you eat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a 500-word challenge, prompt: "cutlery"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Hickey considers, as he does on these nights, the knife. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His knife, to be specific, the one with “HICKEY” engraved carefully into the hilt. It’s been his these four years now, ever since he retrieved it from pocket of the poor lad’s tartan waistcoat before pushing the rest of him, heavy and gone, into the water. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before that night, he can’t know for certainty what the knife had seen. But after— that trajectory he can trace with ease. Greenhithe to Stromness, Stromness to the Whalefish Islands. The knife in his pocket as he learned how pitch flowed and dried, how the fibers of oakum caught underneath his nails. The knife in his hands as he did what had to be done, to save them all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Now, he uses it to sample the goods. This time it’s the ear, for no reason other than he finds it beautiful.  The delicate shell of it, the translucent curves— useless now that its owner will hear no more. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the flesh hits his tongue it’s like nothing else in the world. The way his changed body reacts to its potency; responds with pleasure, power and joy. Yes, this one will do just fine. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Next stop is Goodsir’s. He feels for the poor doctor, he really does. Hickey knows what it’s like to be reduced, to be forced by circumstance to ways one had considered shameful. But Goodsir’s payment— an arm, as usual— is enough to get him cutting. He came back from the North with the same needs as the rest of them, after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Time to bring some home to Sol and Billy, the lesser cuts and the organ meats: in their cheap rooms Billy eats with a grateful fervor; Sol does not make eye contact but devours calmly, some part of him clearly still wishing it could be any other way. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hickey packages the rest like a real butcher, paper and string, and goes off on his route. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mr. Hickey,” says the Captain, opening the door at his first stop. It hasn’t been but a week since Hickey’s last delivery; yet the hunger shows clear in the sallowness of the Captain’s skin, the dullness of his eyes. He can tell it burns low like coals, impatient and alien.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If Francis Crozier wanted to sate his appetite, wanted to truly be free of the ache in his gut that had followed him home from the ice, he would eat it raw. With his hands, the way Sol and Billy do— Hickey has hinted to the man as much. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Surely these men of rank and ritual, discipline and ceremony, should be able to realize that the way one does things is just as important as what is done. Yet when Hickey peers in through the curtains round the back, he sees Crozier and Fitzjames seated close, collars stiff, cravats tied. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They’ve cooked the meat, set it on fine porcelain amidst vegetables that do nothing for them now, taste of nothing. Their cutlery shines in the lamplight, engraved with their initials, marks of personhood and civility that they cling to even now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He laughs, hardly caring if they hear. They’re the same as him— they’re just the same. And they need him. Isn’t it a funny thing?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>**</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i'm on <a href="http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com">tumblr</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe">twitter!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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